The Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, a lavishly illuminated Gospel Book, written on purple vellum, and measuring 420 mm by 330 mm, was made for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles II (the Bald), and given to Arnulf of Carinthia, who later donated it to St. Emmeram Abbey. It is preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München (Clm 14000). Because this was the age of itinerant courts, it has been difficult to identify the atelier where the manuscript was created, but St. Denis, where Charles was secular abbot from 867 to his death, has frequently been suggested.
The sculpted gold cover of the codex is decorated with precious gemstones. At the center of the cover is Christ in Majesty seated on the globe of the world and holding on his knee a book with an inscription in Latin which can be translated, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me."
"Charles not only acknowledges patronage of the book but records his provision of the bold that makes it truly a Codex Aureus the brothers Berengar and Lithard finished the Gospels in 870. In a depiction of the Apocalypse, which may have been inspired by the dome mosaics of Charlemagne's palace chapel at Aachen, the 24 elders adore the mystic Lamb who stands in a circle of light above a rainbow" (Stokstad, Medieval Art [2004] 124).
Filed under: Art , Book History, Bookbinding, Manuscript Illumination, Religious Texts / Religion
